Your Garden: Embrace the awkwardness of gingko trees

Dear Roger: I have three questions, but hope mostly that you can address the main one.

• Enclosed are pictures of my two ginkgo trees. One is growing well, now in its fourth year.

The problem is that it is putting out limbs mostly on one side.

Is there any way I can stimulate growth on the bare areas by cutting into the cambium layer of the bark? I hesitate doing without knowing what I am doing.

The second ginkgo is the same height but doesn't put out much growth. The trees are about 30 feet apart. They are in full sun and my yard has an irrigation system.

Do you have any suggestions?

• My next question is about a healthy Sabal palm I am growing. It does not produce any fruit as I notice on other trees growing locally. Are the trees male and female?

• My last question about a large windmill palm. Its fronds died two winters ago, but it is producing dozens of baby fronds all around the base.

I moved two of the plants into two pots of a mix of humus and sand where I hope to develop a nursery for such plants. Can you suggest a recipe for a good palm-growing mix? - Marian Baucom, Wade

Dear Marian: It is a shame I could not use your photos in the paper. Prints seldom work.

Your photos, however, were helpful in identifying your plants. I like your garden very much, especially the palms, ginkgos and bananas.

I have a similar planting of hardy bananas.

But on with your three questions.

Enjoy the strangeness

Please leave your ginkgos alone.

You cannot stimulate branching by cutting into the cambium unless you insert a bud into the cut. That is possible, but difficult with mature bark. A top-notch grafting expert would not necessarily succeed.

Ginkgo trees are notoriously gawky. In youth, they are not often symmetrical, especially in our hot climate. Even in cooler parts of Virginia, the trees can be slow growing and awkward looking. I like the awkward look of a big trees, especially in autumn when the bright gold leaves call attention to the errant limbs.

With your irrigation and care, the trees eventually will settle down to more consistent growth. Age brings grace. There is little chance, however, that they will develop matching symmetry.

I can tell from your photo that your palm is a Sabal palmetto or cabbage palm.

Flowers are bisexual. Scientists call them "perfect." Since pollen, pistils and ovaries are borne on the same flower, all that's needed is a few bees to create fruits.

I love the flowers of sabal palm. I have seen one tree flower in Fayetteville with an 8-foot long spike containing many hundreds of light yellow, tiny, fragrant blossoms. This flower spike may be the largest in the plant world. It is truly prodigious and showy. You will eventually see such flowers. Once they start, they usually appear annually.

The fruits, however, are another story. I learned during a visit to Florida in 1955 that the small fruits were edible. I bit into one to discover the fruit was a big seed with a thin skin that didn't taste good. The flavor was slightly sweet, but bitter.

I was told that Florida natives ground the dried seeds to a coarse flower to make bread. I would have to be mighty hungry to eat it. But birds, mice, squirrels, deer and bears do eat the fruit.

While the sabal palmetto is known to bloom at 10 to 20 years old, it does not bloom very soon after transplanting. The tree's roots die during transplanting. So the plant has to grow a new root system before it can bloom. This may take five to eight years.

Sabal palmetto is a light feeder. Too much fertilizer may inhibit bloom.

The tree is called cabbage palm because its upper heart and baby leaves can be eaten.

This kills the tree.

Cutting out the tree's single growing tip is fatal. I do not think that's such a bad thing, since the tree inhabits many thousands of acres in its native habitat from southeastern North Carolina throughout Florida.

I'd rather eat asparagus than cabbage palm. It tastes similar but much better.

Windmills and dreams

Perhaps your windmill propagation bed may turn out to be the most fun part of your garden.

Propagation gives something for nothing. It lets you rescue babies. Rooting cuttings of all kinds requires various soil mixes from highly organic, well drained mixes for rhododendrons and azaleas to wet mixes for sprouting bald cypress trees.

Standard mixes from garden centers that contain sphagnum peat moss and a very light volcanic ash called Perlite will work fine. Mixes that wick water well, such as those that contain coconut fiber, work especially well for reviving weak plants and starting new ones.

No cold will kill the windmill palm as long as the soil around the palm contains enough sand to make it drain well.

The palm will be damaged in cold winters, but it will come back and thrive over the years. I have not seen a single large one killed in the Sandhills.

You might watch your babies carefully, however. If they are still very small as winter nears, protect them with a thick pine needle mulch.

Or take the potted plants indoors for the winter. They will survive in the light of a sunny south window.

Send your comments and questions to roger@mercergarden.com or call 424-4756. You may send plant and pest samples to Roger Mercer, 6215 Maude St., Fayetteville NC 28306. Please include your telephone number.